was the mountain side. As we ascended, it was remarkable to perceive how totally Crummock water had lost all its grandeur, it was a striking emblem of human pursuits, thus divested of their importance and dwindled into insignificance when we look back upon them. Having conquered the ascent, instead of finding the Tarn immediately on the edge, as we expected, there was a plain of half a mile to cross, and then we found it lying under a buttress of rock,—as lonely a spot as ever mountain kite sailed over: Like Low Tarn its wafers were dark; but the sun shone, and the wind just breaking up the surface, rollėd over it a fleeting hue like the colour of a pigeon's neck. There is a pleasure in séeing what few besides ourselves have seen. One Tarn, I perceive, differs little from another:-but the slighter the difference of features is, the more pleasure there is in discovering that difference;—and if another of these mountain pools lay in

our way, I should willingly spend three hours more in ascending to it.

The most unpleasant part of this expedition, fatiguingly steep as it was,—and nothing could be steeper which was not an actual precipice,—was, that we had a wall to cross of loose stones, very broad, and as high as an ordinary man's stature. The utmost care was necessary lest we should drag the stones after us; in which ease they would have killed us and buried us at the same time.

Our road to Keswick lay up a long ascent between green swelling mountains— a pastoral scene, with its stream in the bottom, and sheep-folds beside it-then down that vale of Newlands, which is seen so beautifully from Keswick through the great mountain portal.

183

LETTER XLIV.

Departure from the Lakes.-Wigton.Carlisle.-Penrith.-The Borderers.The Pillar of the Countess.—Appleby.— Brough.-Stainmoor.- Bowes.-Yorkshire Schools.

Monday.

WE E were now to leave the land of lakes and turn our faces towards London. The regular road would have been to have returned to Penrith, and there have met the stage; but it would cost us only half a day's journey to visit Carlisle from whence it starts; and a city whose name occurs so often in English history, being the frontier town on this part of the Scotish border, was deserving of this little deviation from the shortest route. For Carlisle therefore we took chaise from Keswick,

the distance being eight leagues. Our road lay under Skiddaw, and, when we had advanced about five miles, overlooked the lake of Bassenthwaite, nearly the whole of its length. We now perceived the beauty of this water, which, because of its vicinity to Keswick, is contemptuously overlooked by travellers; and the sight of its wooded shores, its mountainous sides, with its creeks and bays, and the grand termination formed by the Borrodale mountains as we looked back, made us regret that we had not devoted a day to exploring it. The road at length bent to the eastward, leaving the lake; and shortly afterwards, walking up a steep hill, we had a new and striking view of the vale. The lake of Keswick was hidden behind Brandelow, the long mountain which forms its western bank: over this appeared the mountains behind the waterfall of Lodore, and over these we could distinguish the point of a remarkable mountain at the head of Winandermere..

This was our last view of this lovely country and a certainty that it was the last, that no circumstances could ever lead me to it again, made me gaze longer and more earnestly, as if to fix deeper in my memory so exquisite a landscape. I remembered the day of my departure from my father's house, and for the first time anticipated with fear the time when I should leave England, never to return to it.

We had left the mountains, but their roots or outworks extended to some distance before the plain began. The road lay over an open country of broken ground, with hills at a little distance enclosed in square patches, and newly, as it appeared, brought into cultivation. There was not a single tree rising in the hedgerows. Our stage was to Wigton, five leagues and a half, which is unusually far. The post-boy rested his horses at Ireby, one of those townlets in which every thing reminds us of the distance